[boost] Re: Boost Library Guidelines

From: Ken Hagan (K.Hagan_at_[hidden])
Date: 2003-04-30 04:24:09

> William E. Kempf wrote...
>> pragmas.  As a "best practice suggestion", it's a great idea... as a
>> requirement, I'd have to voice an opinion against.

Paul A. Bristow wrote:
>
> I absolutely agree, but I feel it would be useful encourage authors
> to try.

Playing devil's advocate, but why?

With the compiler in question, I can write

    #pragma warning(push)
        // lower the warning level
        // include dodgy headers
    #pragma warning(pop)

and I do exactly this for all my third party headers. I don't know
if other compilers have this push/pop feature, but they ought to.
(In fact, I can't think of a pragma that wouldn't benefit from
being able to push and pop its effects.)

Also, if I run LINT on my code I get warnings about things that
my compiler never worries about. I have to tell LINT to ignore
the quality of third party headers too. Are we suggesting that
boost authors write "//lint" comments too? Where does it stop?

I use compiler warnings to point me at risk areas in my code.
Boost has been tested rather more thoroughly than my own code
(sad to say) and doesn't feature highly in my risk assessment,
so I'm going to lower the warning level for those headers anyway.

Given that, there isn't much point in boost authors writing lots
of "line by line" warning suppression paragmas.